This is not everyone’s taste but I really wish I still had my copy of this Rick Wakeman song. I had it on a single many years ago but let someone borrow it. I never saw it again.
It was released back in 1980 with the song, Do You Believe in Fairies on the B side. (Back in the day when there was such a thing as a B side.)
I recently mentioned that my radio programme was changing to become the Morning Café.
One of the new segments that I’ve been looking forward to is a look at fitness and health with personal trainer Kellie Long. We introduced the segment yesterday and got off to a wonderful start.
I know that whenever someone is introduced as being a personal trainer, the natural assumption is that they’re a person for whom fitness comes naturally. We get the idea that they’re somehow created just a little differently from us mere mortals and we’re never likely to achieve the things that they’ve been able to achieve.
That’s why we started out with a little of Kellie’s story. It’s a story with which many of us can identify. It’s a story about dissatisfaction from where we find ourselves but the difference in Kellie’s story is that she did something about it then set about inspiring others.
I am not unfamiliar with the pain of being unhappy in my own skin, both physically and emotionally. I was once 93kgs and can proudly say that after 18 months of hard work lost 30 kgs and have never looked back. Was it easy? NO! Was it worth it? Yes! This is why I have been working and studying in the fitness industry for the past five years. I enjoy training people of all walks of life whether they are mothers, aspiring firemen, police recruits or business men and women. I’m proud to be a partner in their lives and a catalyst for them to reach the goals they strive for.
My goals for my clients are to see not just the improvement of their physical capabilities but their mental and emotional progress also. Physical training cannot be separated from a person’s emotional state. Therefore, my training has a holistic approach in building self confidence through client’s achievements and newly formed lifestyles of clean eating, their ability to handle stress and of course their new found strength in all their physical achievements. – KellieLong.com
If you want to find somewhere to start on your own journey to being happy in your own skin you can listen to our segment by clicking the play button on the audio player below. We’re starting with the basics but there’ll be something for people of any fitness level in the coming weeks.
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I’ll be riding my bike with a little more purpose in the coming months as I start preparing for a ride from Albany to Perth this November.
The ride follows the success of rides held over the last couple of years. This will be our third ride highlighting the cancer journey of a number of people and raising money to fight cancer.
The Story Behind the Rides
In February 2009 my wife’s sister passed away at the age of 41 from cancer.
In the weeks leading up to her death I was throwing an idea around for a bike ride from Perth to Albany. The ride would take my morning radio programme on the road to broadcast from a different town each day.
I wanted to give people who had been touched by cancer a chance to tell their story. Whether they’d lost a loved one or survived cancer, I wanted people to have the opportunity to break the silence and let people know that they’ve been through some deep waters. I wanted others who have been touched by cancer to know they’re not alone.
That ride happened in October 2009 and was very successful in so many ways.
As well as giving people opportunity to tell their story we raised around $15 000 for Cancer Council Western Australia.
Last year we reversed the direction and cycled from Albany to Perth, raising almost $20 000.
Ride for Cancer 2011
So now we’re doing it all over again. We’ll be cycling from Albany to Perth with the event taking place in the first week of November. We’ll travel to Albany on the last weekend of October to prepare to start riding back on Monday the 31st of October, arriving back in Perth on Saturday the 5th of November.
We have a great team of cyclists ready to take part and once again I’ll broadcast my radio programme each morning before hopping onto my bike just after midday to cycle to the next town. We’ll be followed by support vehicles which will carry all our gear.
If you’re part of a business that would like to partner with us on the journey, I’m urgently looking for some sponsors for the cycling jerseys. There are different levels of sponsorship for various sized logos on the jerseys.
I also need your story. Have you been touched by cancer? Are you battling cancer now or beaten it in the past? Does a loved one have cancer? Have you lost a friend? If you’d rather not leave your story in the comments section of this post, you can go to my contact page and send me an email.
Please Support Our Ride
You can make a donation to support Cancer Council WA by heading to the Everyday Hero fundraising page. If we can raise $20 000 dollars this year it’ll bring our total so far to over $50 000.
If you’re in Australia your donation is tax deductible. Even if you’re not, the work that Cancer Council WA is doing is making a difference throughout the world through some highly regarded research projects. Just head to the webpage and click donate. You’ll see a dropdown box that you can use to select ‘Rodney Olsen’ as the team member you want to support.
Tomorrow night is census night here in Australia. Once every five years the Australian government gathers information on the Aussie population. It’s kind of a stock take on all the people in the country. It helps them plan for the future and just gives us an indication of who we are as Australians.
It’ll be the first time that we can fill out our census information online.
I wonder how much has changed for your household since the last census five years ago. I imagine there’ll some happy changes and some not so happy.
We’ll have the same number of people in our household but we’ll be in a different area. We moved house almost exactly two years ago.
What’s been the biggest change for you in the last five years? Whether you’re in Australia or not, I’d be interested in seeing what the big changes have been for you over the last five years.
Filling out the census form might not be everyone’s idea of fun but it beats the alternative of getting all Australians to stand together in one place once every five years to be counted. Can you imagine it? Three million four hundred and forty two, three million four hundred and forty three, three million four hudred and … hang on …. someone moved. We’re going to have to start again. One, two, three, four, five, six ….
